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No. 109 . 


II ASSEMBLY, MAE. 14, 1851. 


REPORT 

4 

Of select committee on the subject of capital punish- 
' ment. 

Mr. Baker, from the select committee to which were referred 
the several petitions for the abolition of the death penalty, 

REPORTS : 

That in consonance (as the committee believe) with the enlight- 
ened public sentiment of the State they have, after due conside- 
ration, concluded to recommend the entire abolition of the punishment 
of death. 

For the following reasons — some of them addressing themselves 
with greater force to some minds, and others to others — the 
committee believe that the punishment of death is not only 
unnecessary, but far worse than unnecessary, positively and 
highly injurious in its direct and indirect influence on society. 

1 . The committee recommend the abolition of the gallows , 

Because, the decisive preponderance of the argument to be 
sought within the Sacred Scriptures is on the side of the proposed 
reform. Against it is adduced only the authority of the Code of 
Moses, for the peculiar people, the peculiar land, and the peculiar 
times, for which it was his inspired mission to legislate ; together 

[Assembly, No. 109.] 1 [u.n.5t.] 


2 [Assembly 

with that of a single ambiguous text of a much earlier date, which 
prejudiced theologians pervert into a perpetual and universal in- 
junction, only by a process of mistranslating and misapplying, 
which is repudiated and refuted by others of at least equal piety 
and learning. In favor of the proposed reform , on the other hand, 
almost every page of the New Testament is beautified with its 
radiant testimony ; the light of which glows only the brighter 
from the failure of the efforts made to find a few specks on its 
surface, and to extract, from two or three uncertain texts, a scant 
and doubtful toleration of a practice emphatically condemned by 
the whole pervading spirit of the volume. 

2. The committee recommend the abolition of the gallows , 

Because it is a well settled axiom, that the certainty of punish- 
ment is a much more effectual restraint from crime than its 
severity. A more probable chance of a less penalty (provided it 
be still of a formidable degree of severity,) will always operate more 
influentially on conduct than a less probable chance of a greater. 
The mind brooding over temptation to crime, dwells on 4 the bright 
lights of its favorable chances far more than the darker shades of 
the same perspective picture. From the days of Draco to our 
own, penal law has constantly found itself compelled to promote 
its own steadiness and efficiency of action, by a moderation of the 
harsher severities bequeathed to it from the mistaken policy of 
less enlightened times. Laws at variance with public sentiment 
are confessedly inoperative ; and in proportion to the extent of 
that variance is the uncertainty of their execution. It is not to 
be questioned that a deep and strong public feeling^ hostile to this 
social institution of the gallows, pervades at least a very large 
portion of the community. Whether it be of a majority or mi- 
nority, affects this argument only in degree. The action of juries, 
when death is the stake at issue, is proverbially irregular — inclin- 
ing in the long run improperly to the side of mercy against truth, 
though occasionally for short periods, oscillating back to the 
opposite extreme ; the two alternate evils thus fatally reciproca- 
ting each other, an excessive leniency which grants an unjust and 
unwise impunity to guilt, followed by an excessive though brief 
severity, which is sometimes hasty and rash in inflicting irreme- 
diable punishment upon innocence. The probability of escape, 


3 


No. 109.] 

derived from that wide spread repugnance to the death doom 
which is more or less strong in every jury-box and on almost 
every bench, and magnified by the delusive flatteries of hope, 
cannot but be a very material element in the calculations of every 
mind meditating crime. Under the operation of the proposed 
reform it cannot be denied that the action of the law would be 
much more certain, uniform and steady. Convictions would in 
many cases take the place of those improper acquittals, which 
encourage crime in others by their example of impunity, and let 
loose the worst criminals back upon society, hardened by a first 
guilt, and emboldened to its repetition. In this connexion we 
may refer (among other judicial authorities,) to that of one of the 
most eminent ornaments of the Bench of the city of New-York — 
the worthy son of a worthy father — who has derived a decided 
opposition to the law of death from the opportunities of observa- 
tion afforded by his position, and who has remarked, that while it 
excludes from the jury-box a large 'proportion of those persons best com- 
petent for its important function , it sends into it a large proportion of 
those who do take their scats there , with minds more than half unfitted 
for the solemn duties to which they are sworn. (See Appendix D.) 

3. The committee recommend the abolition of the gallows , 
Because, it is a great mistake to suppose that the fear of a pos- 
sible chance of death — that inevitable end to which we all know 
that every step in life is bringing us nearer and nearer — has often 
much effect in deterring men from any act to which they are 
impelled by any powerful passion or motive. They are usually 
in such a state of mind as to defy and despise it ; or else, impelled 
by temptation and deceived by hope, their fear of it prompts only 
to more effectual precautions for concealment and escape. There 
is nothing that men are constantly hazarding with more thought- 
lessness than their lives. The natural dread of death when 
actually close and certain, is very different from the careless in- 
difference with which most men find little difficulty in exposing 
themselves to the mere chance of a greater or less risk of encoun- 
tering it. As a deterring penalty, weakened as it is by the di- 
minished probability of its infliction, it is believed to be a far less 
effective and useful one, as a general rule, than the substitute 
proposed. Though when actually within the shadow of the 


4 [Assembly 

gallows, there are few who would not pray for its commutation 
into imprisonment, yet while both are still distant and doubtful, 
even on the supposition of an equality of chances, the thought of 
the latter, with an utter impossibility of escape or pardon — per- 
petual, ignominious, laborious and solitary — will, to a large 
majority of minds, present by far the most effective terrors. It 
is the spontaneous remark heard from four out of every five to 
whom the proposition is presented, that they would prefer death 
to such a doom. How much is the force of this argument in 
creased, when we add to it that of the greatly increased certainty 
of punishment which it is not denied would attend the proposes! 
reform. It is a fact established by the most conclusive statistics, 
that the fear of the penalty of death has never been found effec- 
tual to restrain men from a host of minor offences to which it has 
been applied. In all the progressive melioration of the penal 
code, the substitution of imprisonment for death has always been 
found to work with perfect success, diminishing instead of in- 
creasing the number of the offences committed; and there is 
every reason to anticipate with confidence a similar beneficial 
result, from extending it to the few crimes which are yet left on 
our statute book as punishable with blood. 

4. The committee recommend the abolition of the gallows , 

Because, it is not necesaary to hang a man who has committed 
a murder, for the protection of society against the possible repe- 
tition of the act. That argument would, with still greater force, 
require the destruction of every homicidal lunatic, and indeed of 
every lunatic, from the general tendency of insanity toward ho- 
micide. It is not deemed necessary to kill every ferocious wild 
beast, against which society can for its amusement protect itself 
with entire ease and security, by inclosing them in cages. Luna- 
tic Asylums have no difficulty in this respect. The science of 
prison construction and prison discipline at the present day, is 
abundantly adequate to the safe custody of any number of mur- 
derers that may be committed to the massive triple and quadru- 
ple walls of their solitary cells. They can be easily precluded, 
not only from all possibility of escape, but also from that of in- 
jury to their keepers within the prison. It is also an essential 


5 


No. 109.] 

part of the proposed Reform that it should be accompanied by 
the abrogation of the pardoning power in such cases. 

5. The committee recommend the abolition of the gallows , 

Because, nothing short of an absolute and demonstrable neces- 
sity can justify its maintenance. Avoiding all metaphysical ar- 
gument upon the abstract right of society to indict the punish- 
ment of death, and conceding it, on the principle of self-defence, 
when no other adequate means of self-defence exist, we insist that 
it is only in a clearly established case of such absolute necessity that 
the right can be rightfully exercised. In the face of the vast ac- 
cumulation of evidence and argument adduced by those who 
have written against capital punishment, no such clear necessity 
can be now pretended. Even those who may not see in those 
writings an absolute demonstration of the proposed reform, can- 
not at least refuse to admit the strong case of probability made 
out by them, imposing on us at least the duty of experiment, an. 
experiment which can only too easily be abandoned, if, contrary 
to all probability, our experience should prove less successful 
than that of others who have been afraid to venture on the same, 
under circumstances less favorable than our own. Independent- 
ly of every other objection to that cherished institution, this ex- 
periment at least ought not, under such circumstances, to be re- 
fused, even by those who may mistrust its issue, to those deep 
and earnest feelings and convictions of a large and increasing por- 
tion of the community, conscientiously opposed to the punish- 
ment of death, which are so painfully shocked and outraged by 
every occasion of its infliction. 

6. The committee recommend the abolition of the gallows , 

Because, while the reasons thus far adduced are chiefly confin- 
ed to the demonstration that it is unnecessary , and that the pro- 
posed substitute may be adopted with safety and probable ad- 
vantage, our case does not stop at that point : but we derive our 
strongest objection to the punishment of death from the convic- 
tion that it is far worse than merely useless ; that it is fatally 
pernicious, and attended with the most demoralizing and bruta- 
lizing influences upon society ; multiplying the very crime which 
it vainly seeks to prevent by imitating and suggesting it, so, that, 


# 


✓ $ (Assembly 

in the opinion of many who have reflected much on this subject, 
the hangman is himself the direct or indirect cause of more murders 
than he ever punishes or avenges. 

7. The committee recommend the abolition of the gallows , 
Because, it is founded on and sustained by a radical vicious 
moral principle, the principle of vengeance , a principle which, 
however it may disguise itself under the name of justice , is con* 
demned not less emphatically by the highest wisdom of human 
reason, than by the pervading spirit of the whole faith and phi- 
losophy of Christianity, at least as a rule for human action. The 
prevention of crime and the reformation of the criminal, are the 
sole objects of a just and true penal system. Vindictive punish- 
ment, on any rule of retaliation, apportioning penalty to guilt for 
its own sake, to satisfy an imaginary if not impiously presumptu- 
ous equilibrium of retribution, we hold to be utterly forbidden, at 
least to human hands and human judgments. The benevolent 
objects above referred to, prevention and reformation ^ pursued in a 
spirit of merciful love even for the wretch whose very name im- 
plies his wretchedness, must be the sole aims of all such punish- 
ments as we can claim any right to inflict. One of these two es- 
sential objects is utterly violated in the death punishment. To 
exterminate, not to reform, is the revolting function of the hang- 
man ; and it is in the spirit and on the avowed rule of retaliation, 
the claim of “ blood for blood,” that it is inflicted. This bad 
spirit of vengeance . , in various degrees and modes, pervades a large 
part of the penal laws, even of the most civilized Christian com- 
munities, though it is now beginning fast to melt aw r ay beneatli 
the warm light of that gospel which so few of themr have as yet 
comprehended or felt. In the law r of death it stands revealed in 
its worst and most manifest hideousness ; and by its example ex- 
ercises a strong influence on the moral education of every com- 
munity in which it subsists ; on the formation ot the habits of 
thought and feeling of individuals, and of the general spirit of 
society. The evil seed does not fail to bring forth due abun- 
dance of evil fruit. The powerful influence of the laws on the 
character of the people living under them, is seldom sufficiently 
appreciated ; and in it is contained the explanation of the truth 
which has become almost a truism, that cruel laws make a cruel 


7 


No. 109.] 

people ; and that the mitigation of the more fierce and sanguina* 
tj features of the one, is always attended with a corresponding 
diminution of the more fierce and sanguinary crimes committed 
by the other. 

8. The committee recommend the abolition of the gallows , 
Because, from a strange principle of insane imitativeness, 

which appears often to reside in the human mind, it has been 
observed in frequent cases, that executions are very liable to be 
immediately followed by suicides, by hanging, clearly traceable 
to the suggestive influence of the former on the disordered im- 
agination. 

9. The committee recommend the abolition of the gallow$j 
Because, from the mysterious nature of Insanity, it is both 

physically and morally impossible to draw any line of demarca- 
tion at which a just responsibility for crimes of violence, at the 
cost of such a penalty as death, begins or ends — and because , 
while many a criminal has thus been consigned, by a terrible 
mistake of the social justice, to the scaffold instead of the luna- 
tic asylum, a stilFgreater number annually escape all punish- 
ment under the screen of the uncertainties of this plea, whom 
juries would not hesitate to consign to the substitute penalty now 
proposed whether on ground of guilt or insanity. 

10. The committee recommend the abolition of the gallows , 
Because, the punishment of death is irremediable, and numer- 
ous cases — very numerous* — have occurred, in which whether 
from perjury or mistake in the case of direct evidence, or from 
deceptive appearances in the case of circumstantial testimony, 
or from both causes combined, it has been inflicted on those 
whose innocence has been discovered only too late ; because the 
number of such cases, in which no subsequent revelatiops have 
brought to light Jthe innocence of the victims of the law, con- 
jecture in which we have no other clue to guide us, that the sad 
probability to be derived from the large number who annually go 
into the very presence of their Maker with unwavering as 
severations of their innocence ; and because , from the necessary 
imperfection of all human testimony, such cases must always 

* Vida Appendix “ A recent ease” &c., A. 


8 [Assembly 

continue to occur, so long as the fearful practice is retained, the 
abolition of which is here invoked. 

1 1 . The committee recommend the abolition of the gallows , 

Because, by abolishing the publicity of executions our own 
law has already half acknowledged their inutility, if not their 
pernicious influence, as deterring examples. If that argument 
in their favor were sound, it should rather be the policy of the 
law to assemble the whole community to witness the terrifying 
spectacle. The gallows is always emphatically condemned by 
that just voice of wise and righteous public sentiment which has 
bid it shrink from the open light of day, within the shaded 
gloom of the prison enclosure. 

12. The committee recommend the abolition of the gallows , 

Because, finally, there exists abundant testimony in the ex- 
periments that have been already made in other countries, less 
enlightened and civilized than our own, to the safety and proba- 
ble influence that would attend the proposed reform. In the 
case of minor offences, wherever the statistics of its operation 
have been preserved, its abolition has uniformly been found fol- 
lowed by a diminution of the offences. We never saw a back- 
ward step taken in this reform, nor the death penalty ever found 
necessary to be restored, when once it had been removed. It 
was not found necessary to security and good government, during 
all the better period of the republic of ancient Rome, for two 
centuries and a half. In Russia it has long been disused as any 
part of the civil administration of justice, with such success, 
that the universal public opinion in that country is unanimous 
against it ; and the present Emperor has given evidence of the 
general satisfaction with the operation of the law elsewhere, by 
extending it over the province of Finland, (before under the 
Swedish laws,) on its incorporation with the Empire in the early 
part of his reign. During the period of about a quarter of a 
century, when it was abolished in Tuscany, all crimes of violence 
were much more rare than either in the same country before the 
experiment, in the same country after its restoration by the 
French Revolutionists and Bonaparte, against the wishes of the 
people of Tuscany themselves, who have again abolished it • or 


9 


No. 109.] 

in the adjacent Italian States, during the same period. In Bel- 
gium also, it was practically abolished in the year 1830, by a gen- 
eral system of the commutation of all sentences of death ; and 
with a degree of success, under very unfavorable circumstances, 
fully justifying our views of its safety so far as may be judged 
from the latest evidences in our possession.* Various other mi- 
nor trials of the reform in question have also been made else- 
where, all pointing uniformly in the same direction, for which 
reference can only be made in this place to the published wri- 
tings of the advocates of the measure.! 

For these reasons, then, necessarily restricted to a brief out- 
line in their statement, the committee recommend the abolition 
of the gallows, and the substitution of imprisonment for life, 
alike in the names of Christianity, civilization, reason, mercy, 
justice, expediency, and experience. 


• Vide Appendix “Michigan. 55 B. 

f O’Sullivans Report, Titu* 5 do. 1846, Goulds’ do. 1847, Spears’ Works, Burleigh’s 
“Thoughts,” “Argument of Edward Livingston.” 

(Signed.) GEO. E. BAKER, 

ALBERT ROWE, 

J. W. BABCOCK. 








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APPENDIX. 


A. 

A recent case, now going the rounds of the papers, where & 
man named Hicks was executed in Monticello, Miss., and after- 
wards proved innocent, is a fresh proof of the danger of taking 
the life of innocent persons under the law. If time and space 
would permit, a volume might be filled with similar cases. 

B. 

Michigan. 

The following communication from the Secretary of the State 
of Michigan, is deemed important testimony in this connection : 

Oefice of the Secretary of State, ) 
Lansing , Mich ., March 5, 1851. $ 

Sir: In reply to your communication of the 5th ult., I submit 
the following answers to the questions therein propounded : 

1st. Q. How long since capital punishment was abolished m 
your State 1 

A. It was abolished in the season of 1846, which took effect 
the first day of March, 1847. 

2d. Q. How many convictions of murder have occurred since 
the death penalty was abolished 1 

A. In 1847, 1 for manslaughter. 

1848, 4 for murder in the first degree. 

« 1 « second “ 

1849, 1 “ first “ 

« 2 u second u 

1850, no conviction lor murder or manslaughter. 


12 [Assembly 

The foregoing data was taken from the official report of the 
State prison agent, on file in this office. 

3. Q. Have yon any evidence that the persons so convicted 
were, in anywise influenced by the present provisions of your 
laws'? 

A. I have none on file. I will add, however, that I am assur- 
ed by the present Attorney General of our State, who, as prose- 
cuting attorney for the county of Wayne, prosecuted to convic- 
tion/oar of the cases named iu the foregoing list for the years 1848 
and 1849 ; (three of them for murder in the first degree, and one 
in the second) ; that three of them, viz : Anderson Marsh and 
Rademacher, it was clearly shown at the time, were not aware of 
the change in the penalty when they committed their crimes ; 
and it was highly improbable that the other (Bellington) knew 
that the death penalty had been abolished. Of the other cases 
reported, I have no means of ascertaining whether they were or 
were not knowing to the change referred to in our laws. 

4th. Q. Has the crime of murder, in your opinion, increased 
since the law was changed, in consequence of said change ? 

A. My own opinion is that it has not. It may however, be 
proper to add, that upon this point, conflicting opinions are en- 
tertained by many of our citizens. I have, therefore, collected 
some statistics bearing upon the question. I had hoped to obtain 
gome statistics which were collected by a member of our State 
Senate, when this subject was under discussion in that body in 
184(5. But, in reply to my communication he informs me that 
he did not preserve them. The only sources within my reach, 
from which I can collect any data bearing on this question, are 
the annual official reports of the Attorney-General, which em- 
brace the reports of the prosecuting attorneys of the several 
counties, and the reports of the agents of the State Prison. The 
latter gives a list of the convicts received during the year, and 
the crimes for which they are imprisoned ; the former gives the 
number of indictments found and the crime alleged ; so far as 
reports have been received from the prosecuting officers of 
their respective counties, but does not give the number of con- 


13 




No. 109.] 

victions. I have no means of ascertaining the number of con- 
victions for murder previous to the year 1847. I have appended 
a comparative table, exhibiting the number of indictments found 
during the year 1841 to 1850 inclusive, in all those cases where 
killing was the crime. I am inclined to think this table full as 
reliable for the purpose designed, as would be any data showing 
the number of convictions for the same term of years. The 
number of indictments will show very nearly the number of 
homicides committed while the number of convictions may, and 
probably were very much less than the number of actual mur- 
ders committed. The table shows that from 1841 to 1846, in- 
clusive, the number of indictments for murder w r as 16; man- 
slaughter, 1 ; accessaries, 2; assault with intent to kill, 63. 
From 1847 to 1850, inclusive, the number of indictments for 
murder was 14 ; manslaughter, 3 ; assault, with intent to kill, 
40. From careful examination I find the population of the coun- 
ties failing to make reports to the Attorney-General for the first 
six years named, to average 20 percent, of the whole popula- 
tion of the State ; and for the last four years the average is 19 T 3 * 
per cent, making the difference of no practical importance. So 
the table may be considered as a fair expose for those years. Ma- 
king due allowance for the increase of population, I think the 
aggregate results of the first six years may be fairly compared 
with those of the last four years, and a balance struck in order 
to test the effect thus far of the abolition of the death penalty 
upon that class of crime in our State. A closer scrutiny, how- 
ever, developes the following results. During the first six years 
there was, upon the average, one indictment found for mur- 
der, each year, to every 70,500 of population. For the last 
four years the average is one indictment, annually, for every 
75,200. The whole number of indictments of the several classes 
of crimes enumerated in the table for the first six years is 82 ; 
which is an average of one indictment annually to every 13,959 
inhabitants. For the last four years the whole number of in- 
dictments is 57; which is an average of one to every 18,431 in- 
habitants. In making these estimates I have taken as a basis, 
the census of 1840 for the first four years ; the censusof 1845 for 
the next five years; and that of 1850 for the last, deducting 
therefrom, of course, the per cent of population not reporting. 


14 


[Assembly 


While I have the fullest -confidence that further experience 
will only serve to demonstrate the utility of our present laws. 
I am not unaware that no great reliance can be placed upon, or 
any very conclusive argument drawn from, statistics of this char- 
acter, running through so brief a period of time. All that can 
be claimed, and I presume all that any friend of the abolition of 
the death penalty in this State will claim, is, that the results 
thus far are not against the present law, and certainly not such 
that any change can be fairly demanded. 


I will add, that there has been no movement made in our 
Legislature in favor of a change in the present law since 1848, 
at which time no action was had by either house, as no bill was 
even reported from committee. 

Very respectfully, yours, 

C. H. TAYLOR, 
Secretary of State. 

Hon. Geo. E. Baker, 


Albany, JY. F. 


Comparative Table , exhibiting the number of Indictments found in 
the State of Michigan during the years 1841 to 1850, inclusive , 
for Murder , Manslaughter , and for Assault with intent to Kill , as 
taken from the Attorney GeneraPs Official Reports. 


ro 


g s 

Murder, 4 1 5 

Manslaughter, 1 

Accessaries, 1 . l 

Assault with intent to kill, 11 12 12 


1 3 


H 
16 

. . 1 . 

. . 2 . 
9 12 63 10 


1 4 


9 13 


g 1 

4 14 
1 3 
. 0 
8 40 


A cause that has the sanction of so many good and wise men, 
as that of the u sanctity of human life,” it is respectfully sub- 
mitted, is worthy of consideration. We, therefore, append the 
following : 

Testimony of Statesmen , Jurists , Philosophers^ and others^ against the 
Death Punishment. 

u Sanguinary laws are a bad symptom of the distemper of any 
State, or at least of its weak constitution. Life is the immediate 
gift of God to man, which neither he can resign, nor can it betaken 
from him , unless by the command, of Him who gave HP— Black- 
stone. 

w Let there be no rubrics of blood.” — Lord Bacon. 

M Crimes are more effectually prevented by the certainty than 
the severity of punishment.” — Beccaria. 

“ Such is the situation of the majority of malefactors, that 
their existence is only a melancholy combination of all kinds of 
wretchedness. In all such cases, then, the dread of death has 
been ineffectual.” — Bent ham. 

“ The laws of the early Christians prohibited their adjudging 
capital punishments.”— Milmarts History , p. 356. 

“ I shall ask for the abolition of capital punishment until I 
have the infallibility of human judgment demonstrated to me.” — 
Lafayette. 

u The system (capital punishment) is worthy only the rudest 
savages, barren in expedients, and pursuing their object by the 
shortest course.” — Dr. Southwood Smith. 

u I am of opinion that hanging is an advantage only to the ex- 
ecutioner who is paid for putting men to death ; if punishments 
are intended for the benefit of society, they should be useful to 
society .” — Montaign e . 


16 [Assembly 

“ I believe every thief will confess that he has sometimes ven- 
tured upon capital crimes, because he knew that those whom he 
injured would rather connive at his escape than cloud their minds 
with the horrors of his death.” — Dr. Samuel Johnson. 

“ It were to be wished that instead of cutting away wretches 
as useless, that we tried the restrictive arts of government. We 
should then find that few minds are so base, as that persever- 
ance cannot amend ) that man may see his last crime without 
dying for it,” etc. — Dr. Goldsmith. 

“ We cannot be too cautious in depriving our fellow creatures 
of that which God alone can give, and which, it seems to me, He 
alone has the right to take away.” — Dr. Hooper. 

“ It is vain to suppose that jurors will enforce laws which are 
repugnant to the best feelings of our nature.” — Canning. 

“ It is most discreditable to any men intrusted with power, 
when the governed turn round upon their governors and say, 
your laws are so cruel or so foolish that we cannot and will not 

act upon them.” — Lord Brougham. 

*, 

“ The power over human life is the sole prerogative of Him 
who gave it. Human laws, therefore, rise in rebellion against 
this prerogative, when they transfer it to other hands.” — Dr. 
Rush. 

“Laws which inflict death for murder are, in my opinion, as 
unchristian as those which justify or tolerate revenge.” — Dr. 
Benj. Franklin. 

u In my early visits to Newgate, I had formed no opinion up- 
on capital punishment ; but my intercourse with the prisoners 
led to a decided conviction of their evil tendency.” — Elizabeth 
Fry. 

“ Let him who advocates the taking the life of an aggressor, 
first show that all other means of safety are vain ; then he will 
have adduced an argument in favor of taking life, which will 
not indeed be conclusive, but which will approach nearer to con- 
clusiveness than any that has yet been, adduced.”— Dymond. 


17 


No. 109.] 

u Fellow-citizens — Your invitation to me to attend tlie anni- 
versary meetings of the National and of the New- Fork State So- 
cieties for the Abolition of Capital Punishment, is duly received. 
Under circumstances which would admit of my attendance, it 
would give me great pleasure to meet you and the many humane 
citizens who will be in your city on that noble occasion. My 
heart is with you.” — Richard M. Johnson. 

“The principal, and in truth the only plausible ground, from 
which advocates for capital punishments endeavor to derive a 
right to inflict them, is the authority of the Sacred Scriptures. 
But as the laws of Moses were merely local in their operation, 
it is vain to attempt to justify capital punishment under their 
authority.” — Elisha Williams. 

CCi Thou shalt not kill] and i Whoso sheddeth man’s blood by man 
shall his blood be shed’ are laws found in the code of that people, 
who, although dispersed and distracted, trace their history to the 
Creation. The first of these precepts constitutes a tenth part of 
the jurisprudence which God saw fit to establish for the govern- 
ment of all mankind, through all generations. The latter, of 
less universal obligation, is still retained in our system, although 
other States, as intelligent and refined, as secure and peaceful, 
have substituted for it the more benign principle that good shall 
be returned for evil.” — William H. Seward. 

« The experience of mankind has fully proven, that a largely 
bloody code of laws has not been the most effectual to prevent 
crime ; while the growing objections to capital punishment, and 
the positive refusal of juries to convict, in many instances, warn 
us that some other remedy ought to be tried.” — Cassius M. Clay. 

“The State teaches men to kill. If you destroy the gallows, 
you carry one of the strong outposts of the devil .” — Theodore 
Parker. 

“ It affords me much pleasure to observe that my own views 
on capital punishment are the theme of the best men of our 
nation. I have, in every Legislature of which I have been a 
member, pressed the subject, and used every effort, publicly and 

[Assembly, No. 109. % 


18 [Assembly 

privately, to redeem my country from this barbarous sin. As an 
advocate, I have never received a fee for the prosecution of one 
capitally charged, and without reward I have defended, almost 
to the utter prostration of my health, nine-tenths of the capital 
cases of my circuit. As a judge, I have condemned a convict 
to death, only to besiege the executive chamber, several hundred 
miles from the court, to obtain his pardon. No vanity prompts 
this statement. No discouragements, no scoff nor scorn, so help 
me God, shall turn me back. If there is a God in Justice, so 
also is there a God in Mercy.” — Judge Porter , Professor of Law in 
University of Alabama. 

“As it is now perfectly well established that the private 
‘ avenger 5 stays his hand the more readily when the law ceases 
to deal out vengeance, and that the subject reveres God’s image 
in his fellow man the more devoutly when the law displays no 
longer to his view its wholesale slaughters ; as it is proved that 
we need not violate the Divine command — Thou Shalt not Kill, 
in order to protect society against the increase of crime ; nay, 
that the blood we shed will but cause the shedding of more blood, 
in an endless, vicious progression, is it not natural to pause, and 
inquire whether the struggle of one of our fellow creatures is a 
spectacle of so great a moral beauty, such an exercise of the 
finer feelings of nature, that society must provide for its occa- 
sional exhibition, a choice and private exhibition, now, even at 
the expense of the infinite evils which flow from it, as implicitly 
as crime begets crime 1” — Robert Rantoul , Jr. 

“ The innocent and the insane have suffered on the gallows ; 
and although this was not intended, yet the best men in society 
upheld the State in inflicting the punishment of death. It is 
unfortunate, said they, if any but the guilty suffer; but this 
punishment is necessary and rightful, and the State must be 
careful in determining the question of guilt. Now if it should 
turn out that this mode of punishment is neither necessary nor 
rightful, then the sooner a State abstains from the murder of its 
prisoners, and declares by the Constitution that it will so abstain, 
the sooner will it approach the standard of rightful govern- 
ment,” — E. P Hurlbut. 


No. 109.1 


19 


u The time has passed when criminals were looked upon as 
bound to make an atonement for their offences, as if man should 
atone to man, and not alone to God. It is for us to imitate God 
rather in his mercy than in his judgment.” — Judge Edmonds. 

“Gladly would I co-operate with any society whose object 
should be to promote the abolition of every form by which the 
life of man can be voluntarily taken by his fellow creature, man. 
I do heartily wish and pray for the success of your efforts to 
promote the abolition of capital punishment.” — John Quincy 
Mams. 

(t Thank God that I have lived to see the time 
When the great truth at last begins to find 
An utterance from the deep heart of mankind, 

Earnest and clear, that all revenge is crime P 3 

Whittier. 

“Upon the practical abolition of the punishment of death, 
totally and without reserve, my views coincide with the advo- 
cates of the measure.” — O'* Connell. 

“ Time and reflection have confirmed the opinion cherished 
by me for many years, that in our country at least, no just cause 
exists for the infliction of death punishment, and that its abol- 
ishment will hereafter be looked upon as evidence of the moral 
# character of nations, as they successively shall blot it from their 
criminal codes.” — Vice-President Dallas. 

“ I have been about thirty years in the ministry, and have 
never yet discovered that the founder of Christianity has dele 
gated to man any right to take away the life of his fellow 
man.” — Father Matthew. 

“ At the present day, the infliction of capital punishment is 
mainly confined to the crime of murder ; and it is on that account 
that the chief difficulty is presented against its abolition. It will 
not, however, take many words to show, that if capital punish- 
ment is unsuitable as a remedy for other descriptions of crime, it 
is, above all, the most unfit to be applied as a corrective in the 
case of homicide.”— AT. B. Sampson. 


20 [Assembly 

“ I have considered the subject (capital punishment) long, 
patiently, and carefully, on Bible principles, and I have delibe- 
rately adopted the opinion that the death penalty ought to be 
abolished.” — Rev. James Murphy , D.D. ( Dutch Reformed .) 

u Those who think that the law which takes away human life 
should be abolished, contend that this law conflicts with the 
spirit of the religion of Jesus Christ, and that it is not in accord- 
ance with his precepts.” — Rev. Hosea Ballou , ( Universalist .) 

“ The time is coming when it will be seen that it is not our 
duty to hang men, nor necessary to do so for our own security. 
And when that time comes, and the gallows shall be abolished, 
we shall look back upon it with the same horror with which we 
now regard the auto-da-fe, or the trial by torture ; and our chil- 
dren will be astonished that such barbarities could have been so 
long tolerated in Christendom.” — Rev. James F. Clarke , ( Unita- 
rian.) 

“ The difficulty of procuring capital convictions is increasing ; 
and it is confidently anticipated that capital punishments must 
cease in this country, if for no other reason, because they cannot 
be carried into effect.” — Prof. T. C. Upham , D.D.,Bowdoin, Col., 
(Orthodox.) 

“When I first approached the subject, I felt perfectly persuad- 
ed that the punishment of death inflicted by the civil magistrate, 
was not only of Divine appointment, but of universal obligation. 
It has been gradually and slowly that this persuasion has been 
changed. That it is an error, I have no longer any doubt.” — Rev. 
Henry Christmas , A.M . , F. R. S. (Episcopalian.) 

“ I am well pleased with the opportunity of signing the peti- 
tion (for the abolition of capital punishment.) I feel well per- 
suaded that there is nothing contained in the gospel of Christ 
authorizing the infliction of capital punishment.” — Rev. B. T 
Welch , D.D. (Baptist.) 


21 


No. 109.] 

“It behooves, and well becomes the State of New-York to take 
the initiative step in this wise and sacred philanthropy — the 
State from whose example and lead have already proceeded two 
of the greatest reforms of the age, namely, the temperance re- 
formation and the abolition of imprisonment for debt ; the State, 
too, that has given birth to many noble sons who have advocated 
this reform, (the abolition of capital punishment,) of whom two 
alone need here be referred to, a Tompkins and a Livingston; 
and to whose memories no worthier monument could be erected 
by a proud and grateful country, than the proposed law.” — O' Sul- 
livan's Report. 


B. 

Another eminent Judge is reported to have made the follow- 
ing remarks in charging the jury in the case of Pritchard. We 
quote from the Tribune of March 13, 1851 : 

a Judge Edmonds in his charge to the jury, said in the sum- 
ming up, that he was opposed to the statute of penalty of death, 
on account of the reluctance of jurors, when they know a verdict 
of guilty is to be followed by the punishment of death, so to de- 
clare it, and hence the large number that escape. But it is not 
for the jury to become legislators ; their province is merely toad- 
vise the court whether the party is guilty or not. It is the con- 
sideration that jurors refuse to find verdicts of guilty in capital 
cases, that I have come to the conclusion that the punishment of 
death should be abolished by the law rather than by courts and 
juries.” 

Note. The committee deem it just to acknowledge their ob- 
ligations to J. L. O’Sullivan, Esq., whose able report made to the 
Legislature in 1841, has become a text book on the subject. 

The report of John S. Gould, made in 1847, is one of the most 
complete vindications of the justice and expediency of the con- 
templated reform ever presented to any legislative body. 

The popular report and addresses of James H. Titus, Esq., 
also afford a large fund of argument, statistics, and incidents of 
the most convincing character. 


22 [Assembly 

These works have all been carefully examined, and are respect- 
fully recommended to all who desire more light than the com- 
mittee have been able to throw upon the subject, in their brief 
epitome of arguments; 


The committee recommend the passage of the following bill : 

AN ACT 

To abolish Capital Punishment, and to provide for the 

more effectual punishment of the crime of Murder. 

The People of the State of New-York , represented in Senate and 
Assembly , do enact as follows : 

Section 1 . The punishment of death is hereby abolished. 

§ 2. Any person convicted of any crime, punishable with death 
by the laws now in force in this State, shall be confined in the 
State Prison for the period of his or her natural life. 

§ 3. On conviction of any person for the crime of murder, he 
shall thereupon, with respect to all rights of property, to the 
bond of matrimony, and to all civil rights and relations of what- 
soever nature, be deemed to be dead in all respects, as if his na- 
tural death had taken place at the time of such conviction. 

§ 4. Nothing in this act shall be understood to make any crime 
bailable otherwise than it would have been before the passage of 
this act. 

§ 5. This act shall take effect on the day of next 







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